Worst Movie of All Time? Maybe not, but close.

Rating: 1/10 (21 June 2011)

Watching the film "The Legend of 1900" is by definition a trial of patience. Every aspect of the movie strains believably to its breaking point, to such an extent that you wish to watch a movie like "Star Wars", just so you can watch a movie without having to question the silliness of everything that happens.
Like many movies that feature phenomenal music, not-so-bright people mistake that music for a quality movie. That is a shame. The music truly is exceptional, and is one of only two redeeming aspects of the film. The other is the acting of Tim Roth, who desperately attempts to pull this movie out of the depths it is falling into. But unfortunately, all of his acting chops cannot save this movie.
The movie falls apart quickly - the eye-rolling begins at the beginning, with the unlikely discovery of the baby, and quickly turns to out-and- out groans when we find that the child has the magical ability to play the piano at a professional level without ever having touched the instrument or having been given any introduction to music, chord structure, formal training or any other aptitude building of any kind. Since the movie is built on this concept, everything that follows lacks any punch since none of it is in any way believable. By the time 1900 and Max are sliding around on the ballroom floor during a huge storm while deftly playing the piano, you'll likely have realized that this movie is pure silliness. That stuff works in anime movies, but not in films like this where the audience really needs to believe that the events depicted could have happened.
The movie isn't helped by the terrible, terrible acting of much of the supporting cast. The awful Pruitt Taylor Vince hams it up to the best of his (meager) abilities, and every scene he appears is dragged down into boredom, eye-rolling, and laugh-inducing dialogue. I guess its no surprise when the co-star of the films only other notable role was as a patient on "House". Other than Clarence Williams III as "Jelly Roll" Morton, and Bill Nunn as 1900's adoptive father, there's really no other actors to speak of anyways (and applying that term to anyone in the film other than Roth is a stretch, to say the least).
If you're able to stick this terrible movie out to the ending, you will have progressively been deadened time and again by the schlocky, pointless, unbelievable story to the point that the final ridiculous scene won't even surprise you much. Although when you think back on it, you'll find yourself chuckling to yourself and wondering what you were thinking by not turning it off earlier. And that's really where we get in this movie - Nowhere. Turn it off before it starts and you'll be happier.
So its maybe not the worst movie of all time, there are movies like "Plan 9" and "DeathBed" which deserve that title more. But when a movie takes itself so seriously and comes off so pretentiously, as "1900" is wont to do, you really want to rank it below the movies that are worse, if only to punish it for its excesses. Watch something more believable, like "Men in Black", or "Spy Kids"... or even "Cars". The idea of talking cars is so much more believable than this tripe.